Despite the blood on his face and the submissive position, Master Wara sat tall and unbothered, back and shoulders straighter than Kasik had ever seen them. Usually, they were curled over a table and rows of quipu, or curled over Kasik as he taught him to transcribe their knowledge, or curled over a cup of tea before a fire.
Everyone who knew Master Wara loved him. There was always a word of encouragement from his lips, a look of pride in his eyes, a helping hand. Those same qualities shone through him even then, bloodied and on display. It was clear the emperor meant to humiliate him, but Master Wara looked like a pillar of hope and rebellion before them all.
“Observe what happens to those of you who would dare to plot against me and my people.”
As if knowing what was coming next, Master Wara lifted his eyes to the heavens and exposed his neck. There was a scream of metal cutting the air, and then a flash of light as the blade sliced across bare flesh. Bursts of startled gasps and screams rose like a wave.
Kasik hadn’t seen Maicu draw his blade, nor had he expected such a vicious killing. He grasped on to a chair to avoid collapsing, unclear where his dread began and his body ended. But through it all, Kasik kept his eyes on Master Wara. The blood pouring from his neck. The way his head fell back and almost tore off from the depth of the cut. The slack in his hands that had always been filled with the weight of the world.
Finally, his body gave up and listed to the side, falling into a heap at the feet of the emperor who didn’t care to spare a glance.
Such little regard for the man who had taught him, who had served his tayta before him and his empire proudly and boldly for so many years.
Kasik stared at his mentor, his teacher, hisfriendand he held himselftogether with the barest of threads that reminded him of why they needed to run, to leave and never look back. If Maicu had his way, it would be Nina’s blood covering the floor. Nina’s unblinking eyes devoid of life. Nina’s body tossed aside so carelessly.
It was meant to be a warning, but it was only a reminder. A catalyst. An affirmation of all the choices Kasik had made, and all the things he knew to be true.
More than ever, Kasik wanted Nina to use her attay to rip the entire room to shreds. He would climb over tables and bodies to get to her if he had to. He would—
“The next gift,” Maicu proclaimed loudly for all to hear, and then he pointed a hand at Nina, “is for my betrothed.”
43
Nina was barely aware of her surroundings. The blood coating the floor was obscenely garish, and thesmell.Gods.It permeated the room and clogged her nostrils until she was sure she would vomit.
Tears blurred her vision, making it so the faces of shock surrounding her were terribly softened into nightmarish visages of wide eyes and downturned mouths. Kasik was across from her, so close but so far, and between them were endless stretches of tables and unfamiliar faces. Everything seemed to tilt and list until Nina was unsure which way was up.
They had put something in her drink. Something that made her own body feel foreign. Frantically, she searched for her attay, trying and failing to reach beneath the fog of terror and probe for threads of life and will, but the icy hand of the achilla was all she could feel.
Except for Master Wara, whose gold threads faded to a pinprick until winking out of existence forever. She should have escaped while she still had the chance. Would have, if it wasn’t for a thick and pressing foreboding that rooted her to the spot.
Eyes glued to him, Nina watched as Maicu motioned to the side again. Atik appeared with another hooded figure, this one frail and stumbling toward the center of the room, their head barely above their shoulders as it rolled this way and that. Atik moved them slowly, carefully. With much more care than he had shown Master Wara. Whoever it was, they were important. Nina felt it in her bones.
She tried to stand but lost her footing. She refused to sit and watch Maicu kill another innocent person while Master Wara’s body was still warm at his feet.
Walk away,her mind screamed at her.Save yourself.But she could do no such thing. She would have to wait and watch and prepare.
“May I present to you,” Emperor Maicu announced, the weight of his words softened by the shifting of bodies and chairs. The crowd seemed interested and uncomfortable, not quite sure what was happening but enjoying it, nonetheless. Nina didn’t understand what was happening, either, but she braced herself against some unforeseen enemy when she heard blades being freed from their sheaths.
Directly across the room, several tables filled with captivated people between them, stood Kasik, and on either side of him was a walla with a blade held to his neck. Kasik’s hands were in the air, palms out, and his eyes were pinned to hers. A yawning pit opened in Nina’s stomach. Whatever they had given her made everything feel dampened and slow, but the dread pooling beneath her skin was visceral enough to pierce the fog.
Movement stole her attention. Maicu reached for the hooded figure, his fingers curling around the edge of the cloth bag. In his right hand was the blade he had used to slaughter Master Wara. Blood still dripping from the edge and landing on the floor with aplop.
Nina couldn’t have moved even if she tried. Anticipation tingled in her fingers, and her attay swirled and eddied with nowhere to go.
Then the bag was off, and the head was free, and Maicu’s words were little more than a whisper among the screaming in her mind. “Sacha the Seer, from the far reaches of Limac. Sister to my betrothed.”
All at once, Nina moved, a force of fury propelling her out of her seat and over the table. Her attay clawed at her insides, clawed at the emperor, only to meet wall after impenetrable wall. There was an achilla on each of his limbs, in the circlet on his head, hanging from his neck. Only then did she notice them. Only then did a firm hand wrap around her shoulder and quiet the screaming of her power.
“No!”Nina screamed over and over as walla moved in to hold her down. She thrashed and kicked against the hands that tore her from her mission. No longer was she poised and powerful. She was the wild animal they had feared, screams of rage echoing up to the ceiling and beyond to the stars, the gods, the whole of the upper realm.
From a distance, she heard Kasik scream her name, his voice broken and beaten. She mourned him already, mourned their freedom, the plans they had built and the secrets they had kept. They would die with them. But Nina would do anything, sacrifice everything, to reach her sister’s side. There had never been a question about that. She would throw herself at the feet of the emperor again and again if it meant saving Sacha.
An arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her against warm flesh. With it, everything went eerily, agonizingly quiet. Her rage cooled into a low fire. Her mind slowed to the pace of a sea slug crawling over the bottom of the silty ocean.
The lack of Atik’s threads filled her mind. It subdued her agony enough so that she couldseeher sister, so far from her reach. Stringy brown hair loose around her chin. Too-big dress hanging from her too-thin frame. Her eyes half opened; a small hand extended toward Nina.
“Sacha,” Nina cried. She would have fallen if it wasn’t for Atik’s arm holding her up. His other hand wrapped around her chin and forced her to watch. As if she would turn her eyes away.
